1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a device for recovering floating matter from water surface, and more particularly to an improvement of a suction device for an oil separation tank, said tank being mounted on a floating body such as ships, etc. and closed at its upper part and opened at its lower part and including a socket opened below water level for receiving an upward flow of floating oil which has been drawn into water.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Petroleum or the like which is leaked from a tanker or a ship onto water surface is one of major sources of pollutants which cause sea pollution. Hitherto, there have been used various devices for recovering floating matter in order to prevent diffusion of petroleum or the like over water surface. In such devices, there is generally used a belt device comprising a pair of pulleys and an endless belt closely engaged therein, which is mounted on a floating body such as ships and the like. In this device, one of the pulleys is arranged above water level and the other pulley is arranged below water level, whereby the endless belt is circularly driven above and below the water level. Thus, the floating matter is made into contact with and pulled by the lower travelling portion of the belt into the water. Then, the floating matter is turned upwardly in a floating direction around the pulley arranged below the water level and fed into an inverted and bottomed oil separation tank having a socket opened below water level, where the floating matter having a low water content is recovered by a gravity separation. Then, the floating matter recovered in the upper portion of the tank is successively transported into a storage tank through a conduit by means of a suction device provided on the top of the oil separation tank.